Where are all the moderates?
People want to be identified something. “Conservative”, “Independent”, “Progressive”, “Libertarian”, “Wiccan”, “Catholic”, “Methodist”.. you name it and there is a group out there for you. People love labels, they love labeling someone something and they love labeling themselves something. It is how we are made up, we want to be able to put people into little boxes and slap a stamp on them. That way we can discount what they say if we disagree with them, or we can say that is a great idea because we agree with them.
This is also why are country is so screwed up at the moment. I spent four amazing days two weeks ago at ComicCon, yes, you could label us as “Dorks”, “Nerds”, “Fanboys”, “Trekkies”, or what ever you want to. At the convention, we were all people, we enjoyed what we were around and had a good time. Last weekend I spent 4 days at my High School Reunion. I knew a lot of them would call themselves “Conservatives” and some of them were “Progressives” but all in all, we were “Baumholder Bucs” and we were people that had a good time with each other. In both cases, religion was never interjected, politics were not interjected, we were a group of individuals, enjoying ourselves.
I listen to the news and without a doubt you hear the term “Conservative” and depending on your flavor, it is either used in a negative or positive tone. The issue here is not the terminology, it is the fact that we have created buckets for people to discount others. Conservatives HATE Obama, Conservatives HATE anything that does not fit into the Conservative ideology which is pretty laid out and easy to follow. Progressives LOVE Obama. Progressives HATE anything that would even come close to being considered Conservative Ideology.
Had a really good talk with a friend of mine at the reunion. He summed it up best from a Conservatives ideology. There are true Conservatives that live by the Conservative creedo outlined by Reagan and taken to further extremes by the talking heads on the radio and FOX News. Basically anything that is NOT Conservative is labeled Liberal/Progressive. This is a very Black and White view of the world. It is a Good vs Bad concept. It is a Right vs. Wrong concept. This is NOT the way the world works. This is NOT the way people are and it is frightening. He made mention of a guy that was running for a state seat in Georgia. He had some conservative views, but also some views that were NOT conservative. That guy was labeled a Liberal. Liberal is Georgia is almost like labeling someone in Germany a Nazi.
The worst thing that could have happened to this country was the conservative movement. I am not decrying the politics, I agree with a lot of the politics in some cases. The fact that you had a very charismatic leader in Ronald Reagan that did what he needed to do is great. But the minute you created the term conservative and created a movement of conservatives, you knew immediately that there would be a balance forged, another group would appear, the Liberals/Progressives appeared. Here is the irony, the Conservative movement created the Liberals, not because a group got together and called themselves Liberals or Progressives. The Conservatives created the group by labeling people that did not follow the conservative creedo. It would be like going out on a playground and playing with a group of people that had the same likes as you and created a club, then started running around pointing fingers at people that did not want to join that club a name. It is not like these people were in a group, but now this group was created out of thin air because the original group created the secondary group.
As time grew on, people saw the Conservative movement and started to join. It is almost like someone that becomes a born again Christian. They embrace it with both hands and believe it and any time they are questioned, they try and out Christian the next guy. The guy that grew up in a Christian household is not as devote as the Born Again. So you have people basically trying to out conservative each other to be part of this group. To one end of the spectrum you have the Rush Limbaugh’s, the Michael Savage’s, to the other end of the Spectrum (in a black and white world) you have the John McCain’s.
The Right wing has done an exemplary job in regards to making sure that their ideology is pushed forward. They do this by not agreeing with anything that is brought forward by someone that is not part of their group. When nothing gets done, they blame the other side. When something gets done without their input, which was asked for, they say that they were shut out and it is entirely liberals pushing stuff down our throat. Believe me, this is done on both sides. The perfect example of this is the health care bill. It was brought forth by Liberals in congress when the democrats had control of congress and it was pushed through. The only real issue here is, and I am not sure how much to believe on this, that they asked for Republican input and support, they made some concessions, but still got -0- support from that party.
Why is our government not working? Our government is not working because you have two polar opposites fighting against each other that only see black versus white, they only see a right versus wrong. There will always be conservatives, there will always be liberals/progressives, what this government and what this country is missing, are the moderates. We as a nation are missing that third group that can work with the far left and can work with the far right. I have a lot of respect for people that go over the aisle. Ben Nelson, Olympia Snow, John McCain (until he went all conservative to get the republican nod in the previous election), Scott Brown are people that we need more of. If nobody works together, then nothing is going to get done.
I am disgusted by both parties. I am disgusted by the fact that our government can’t freaking agree to get anything done because of ideology of right vs. wrong, black vs. white. The sad fact is that we as a country are doing this to ourselves, our own people are only voting for the truest of true Conservatives or truest of true liberals. During primaries for party nods, you have moderates forsaking moderate beliefs, just to score points to win their parties nomination, then turn around and try to be what they probably are when it is for the general populice. I cannot trust those people, because in all honesty, I have no idea what they really stand for. Are they standing for me and my beliefs, or are they standing for their party and their parties beliefs?
We as Americans need to stand up and start having these people work with each other. In our jobs, we have team members that we have to work with. We may not agree with how they do things, or what they propose, but we work with it, we have to work with it, if not then the company itself breaks apart. Our government has not been working with each other since the early 90′s. The California State government has not been working for us since the late 80′s. The people that we are electing are not people that really should even be in government, they are NOT representing you nor I, they are representing a concept and right now that concept is flawed, on both sides of the table, the reason it is flawed is because the middle ground has dried up and is being run out of office.
People like Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Michael Savage are killing this country. MSNBC, FOX News are both taking knives and stabbing this great country in the heart. It is sickening. Unless there is an ideological change in this country to start putting people into office that are willing to work, and really work with everyone, and not just people within their own party, there will be a bigger split, a bigger break down of our government until it really stops working. Right now it is broken down on the side of the road, but the engine is still good, it just needs to get fixed so that all of the pieces work with each other to get it running again.
